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This was a trip to Argentina and Chile with five good mates:

Party: Steve Killick, Steve Davis, Steve Dunnett (Steve’s hereafter referred to by surname), Ryan Lishman, Richard Stewart, Bruce Spottiswoode

The mob

I’ll try not to be too factual about this.

Wasting time for three days (Killick, Dunnett and I flew in three days before the other chaps) in Buenos Aires is far from a problem. The hell with the diligent tourism museum & monument spree. One could easily spend an entire summer month sprawled on a park bench listlessly watching the exquisite local fauna drifting too and fro. The extent to which the surrealism of having sooo many gorgeous women sprinkled about was akin to starring in your own "larger than life" Truman show; it must be a conspiracy! I think I’ve made my point.

A further thing that threw our perception was the fact the beers come in 970cl bottles, so the blasé "shall we ‘ave another" becomes a rather serious issue. Needless to say, time passed and visiting DC-10 gave birth to our friends. There were some complications in that two of the ice axes failed to materialise. It eventually turned out that they were never even conceived, and probably spent the next month tediously wading through thick South African beaurocracy.

Spanish (or lack thereof) proved to be a nightmare. Despite the fact that we were very obviously "stupido gringos" there was a general public persistence to ask us for directions, marital advice and whatever else they were asking for. Shrugging of shoulders, shaking of heads and glassy eyed gawking only resulted in what must be the Spanish equivalent of pigeon English. As if we had a slow monosyllabic Spanish clue anyway! This problem did ease off as the trip eased on, probably due to the Spanish titbits we picked up and our increasingly unapproachable odour.

I’m making absolutely no progress, I’ll try to be a bit more factual about this.

We got ourselves onto a bus and headed down to San Carlos de Bariloche. Upon arriving and seeing the place, I was brimming with anger and an extensive hatred for humanity. How was it that I could get through 22 years of my life and never hear about such a paradise? Picture this: pretty town, big blue sky, big green forests, big deep lakes, big mountains with nice white snow. Ooooo! In the winter months, Bariloche is the ski capital in South America, but alas with the passing away of the snow in summer one just has to make do with rock climbing, paragliding, windsurfing, scuba diving, trailing and trout fishing. Oh God yes and the chocolate supermarkets - on one particular occasion I almost suffocated due to having such a hefty wad of coagulated chocolate crammed into my face.

Killick’s father Andy joined us for our first two excursions. Cerro Cathedral is like a sport climbing haven for traditional climbers (in terms of accessibility to routes). We spent three awesome days feasting on granite spires. The highest and most prominent peak "Principale" proved to be by far the most satisfying and exhilarating climb, providing panoramic views of the endless snow-infested Andes.

Steve Davis and I about to have a go at principale

The objective of excursion B, Mt Tronador (3500m), was pompously perched above all, seductively fanning out it’s crevasse-ridden glaciers; beckoning. So after a day’s recuperation in Bariloche, we headed off to Tronador. It was a good six hour walk up to the snowline, where we pitched camp. The wind promptly unpitched it and persuaded one of our tents to kamikaze over a resident 300m cliff. It was fortunate that we had refugio close at hand. We spent a day getting acquainted with the snow and ice (initiating the two new axes brought in Bariloche) and exactly how hard a snowball feels at 40km/h. The Killick’s gave us a brief lesson on the arts of alpining and crevasse rescue, after which we headed off over the glacier to toy with fate, to no avail. Eventually things got out of hand (as usual) and we ended up launching ourselves into crevasses in order to be rescued. The summit day (which only showed it’s face after sitting out a day of bad weather) was postcard and hard-arse mountaineering magazine material. Slogging up enduring snow slopes, alpining along knife edge ridges and meandering between house-sized blocks of ice and over snow bridges made up what must be one of the greatest days of my life.

The descent from Tronador

Shifting the mood to something a bit more serious so as not to belittle the following experience.

Parting with Andy, we did the bus stint up to Santiago for an assault on one of the 6000m Andean giants. Getting permits and organising transport and mules for Tupungatu (6550m) proved to be a mare, but was well worth the effort considering that we were the only people on the mountain. Aconcagua, which is 400m higher, hosts close to 3000 people during the high season. With nothing but a wildly inaccurate photocopy of a map and some scanty instructions from the mountain club, we headed off amidst the grandeur of the 4000m foothills. I lie, we had the mule man to show us the way to base camp. Above base camp (3200m), one progresses to three more camps (camp1 at 4100m, camp2 at 5000m, camp3 at 5900m), spending two nights at each camp. Two shifts are done to each camp mostly as part acclimatising but also to split the load. We were hit by two spells of bad weather, one on our first trip to camp2 (we had to prematurely dump gear) and the second on our summit attempt, resulting in us not making the last 50 or so metres. The altitude and cold were dogs, myself in particular getting a serious spell of the alties on the way down.

Making our way from camp1 to camp2

As a technical challenge Tupungatu posed no great threat, but crampons, axes and ropes were definitely required. The challenge lay more in both the physical endurance and dealing with thoughts stemming from a mind corrupted by solitude and lack of oxygen. It came as a surprise when Dunnett stated afterwards "We hardly said a thing up there." One just introverts and falls into a numb and self absorbed trance. This coupled with the boundless splendour of the Andes made Tupungatu a rich personal experience.

To unwind, those of us homeward bound (Killick and Dunnett still had a month to frolic in the Andes) got to spend new years on Copacabana beach in Rio.

Impanema beach in Rio